Where Have We Been?

Well, it's been about two months since little Sloane joined our circus and a circus it has been.  We now are settling into a little rhythm, getting a routine down and tackling challenges head on.  Since I last posted, Mimi and Grandaddy came to visit.  It was so helpful to have an extra pair of hands here to entertain our little Elsa, cook us dinners and babysit so Mason and I could go out!  Hadley sure loves having her Mimi here to play with her, read her books and take her to the playground for extra 1:1 attention.  We went to Frozen on Ice, which as you can imagine was a HUGE hit.  She did.not.move the entire show!  We go back to Charleston Mother's Day weekend for more Mimi and Grandaddy fun at the beach.

Mimi thinks the bottle drying rack is a great place to also dry her wine glass.  It is very effective and cute, so why not?!

Mimi and mommy's photoshoot of Sloane when she was 1 month old. 

Hadley has done very well with Sloane, much better than we all expected.  It took her several weeks to really interact with her, however now she tells everything "That's my baby."  She has nicknamed her Sloane-y, which has really stuck.  Poor girl will be called Sloane-y her whole life.  She's also very observant of what we do with Sloane.  She buckles up Penny and Perro in the swing, tries to balance the bottle on her chin so she could grab her snacks, puts her stuffed animals in Sloane's pajamas, oh the list goes on and on.

First social smile March 21, 2016

Our first trip to Barre class.  Hadley turned our single Bob Stroller into a double stroller, apparently, by making herself a little seat on the front.

Breastfeeding...breastfeeding...breastfeeding.  Well, it's not for everyone and it surely wasn't for me, again this time.  But hey we really gave it a try and I can truly say we tried hard this time.  For 3 weeks, we saw the Lactation Consultant, Joanna Koch at PAMF.  Early on things were going fabulous, she was latching very well and feeding great.  Buuuuut when my  milk came in, boy oh boy did all our problems start surfacing.  I tried EVERYTHING.  Yet again, I have a craaaaazy oversupply producing 70 ounces a day.  Now I have weaned down drastically but at the beginning I was producing enough for multiples.  We tried cabbage leaves, weaning, pumping to soften so she could latch, nipple shields, bottle feeding until everything healed, various medications and hospital grade pumps.  After trying soooooo much, Sloane was feeding about 1.5 hours at a time and it seems she was not feeding effectively because after a hour and a half of feeding she would be super fussy about 30 minutes later and would feed for another hour and a half.  We just weren't able to get things done and she was able to feed effectively with the bottle.  So now I am exclusively pumping again, have a deep freezer almost full of frozen milk (probably over 1,000 ounces stored) and I'm borrowing a wireless small Medela (Freestyle) pump from a friend, which has been a lifesaver, I can now get Hadley a snack, pick out clothes and we can even eat dinner as a family while I pump.  Hadley has really adapted well to pumping as she likes to help hook up the tubes, turn on the pump and play pretend with the clean bottles.  Oversupply and pumping may seem like heaven to a lot of people, but I am not on my FOUTH round of mastitis!  All this milk just sitting in the milk ducts has been a breeding ground for infection, which I have gotten really good at detecting the symptoms early on to get it treated.  Having this many infections truly sucks and is so painful.  I am so beyond thankful to Mason for supporting me as I call him at work in pain, frustration and everything else that comes with breastfeeding/pumping.  Thank you to Susan Booras and Sheridan Ross for also helping me at the beginning as I was trying to navigate how to breastfeed, latch and figure it all out.  Although it didn't work out, I am truly thankful for your help.  

Something I read on a blog while I was going through all this, crying during each feed and on the way to the doctor every week really hit home.  

"We don't talk about postpartum pain, bleeding, stitches, not being able to stand upright, or easily walk around.  We don't talk about struggles of early breastfeeding: cracked and bleeding nipples, mastitis, and worries about producing enough milk."  

And a final update on little Sloane and her Port Wine Stain.  Her first treatment the beginning of March went VERY well and we now have 1 out of 10 treatments behind us.  The lidocaine cream (which you can see in this picture behind the saran wrap) worked wonderful.  The only challenge was trying to keep her hands off her face for 30 minutes.  The treatment was FAST, there were only 50 laser pulses, which only took about 20 seconds total and we were done! Dr. Teng said at the beginning "When I put these protective eye shield stickers on her eyes she will start to cry" as she would not like them.  Whelp, she didn't move or fuss!!! Mason was able to hold her, swaddled in her little lemon blanket and we all got to wear stylish goggles.  She did not react at all to about the first 20 pulses, which were near her hairline/ear and then she started to notice what was happening and started crying, but by that time we were done!  She stopped crying immediately when they stopped and she was so content taking her bottle in the waiting room as we packed up to leave.  We pray the next 9 treatments will go as well, which we go back next week April 13th for our next treatment.  We go to Ophthalmology the end of April to follow up regarding the possibility of eye involvement that sometimes accompanies Port Wine Stains.  So far so good, so we are thankful!!!  "We can't promise to fix your problems, but we can promise you won't have to face them alone."